On Writing End Times

December 2009 marks five years that I’ve been writing End Times, the foundering ship which I am riding all the way to the ocean floor. I began writing the first entries in December 2004, and publishing them online in real-time format on January 1, 2005. The real-time format lasted for about three months before inevitably slipping away from me, and now I’m staring at my stranded characters across an ever-widening fissure of time.

I posted a new entry a few minutes ago, and given my track record, we all know it’s the last one I’ll be posting in 2009. This was an entry for October 10. The first entry I published in 2009 was for October 1. Some days have more than one entry, so that’s a total of fifteen, which is still abysmally low.

The reason I don’t post nearly as frequently as I used to is, shock horror, because I don’t enjoy writing End Times anymore. When I started it (in high school!) I had no idea where it would lead. A few other people were writing apocalyptic journals online and I thought it looked like a bit of a lark, so I figured I’d write one myself until I got bored with it. It proved to be quite popular, with – at its peak – maybe twenty or thirty regular readers. That made me feel good, and encouraged me, and I kept going.

Somewhere along the way I began to gradually lose interest in it. I have no idea where in the five-year saga that happened. The result was that I posted less frequently and that there was (in my opinion) a noticeable decline in the quality of writing. As a result less people read it, which meant I had less incentive to write it, and with that the negative feedback loop was up and running. And now we come to the close of a year in which I posted, on average, once every 24 days – a span far too long to keep all but the most devoted reader’s attention. Even assuming I were to post more frequently, and only have an entry for every couple of days of storyline time, that would mean an optimistic finish date of late 2012.

I do have an outline for the rest of the story. I know how the rest of October plays out, I know what will happen in November and December, and I know how it’s going to finish. The only thing preventing all this from happening is my deep loathing of actually sitting down and doing it.

Here’s the kicker: I don’t really have much of a desire to write anything these days. There was a time when I felt obligated to write End Times before anything else, so that it was holding me back from other projects; there was a time when I had abandoned that notion and worked quite often on other projects; and now there is a time when I have dozens of ideas for novels and short stories floating around in my head, and this enormous barnacle-encrusted leviathan sitting unfinished on Livejournal, and yet I devote less than a couple of hours every few weeks to working on any of them at all.

That worries me. Writing is pretty much the only thing I’m good at. Why don’t I want to do it?

The best explanation I can offer is that perhaps, in my early twenties, I’m in the period most writers spend actually exploring the world. Explaining it and telling stories about it comes later – though no doubt they spend these years constantly writing anyway, even if none of it comes to fruition.

I do write, though – I write a lot of book reviews, and when I go abroad I keep travelogues. Who says I have to write fiction? Apart from the fact that I want to be a fiction writer.

That’s the thing, really. I’ve become one of those writers for whom the actual writing is an unfortunate and unpleasant step on the way to the accomplishment of having written.

I didn’t always used to feel like that. I used to love it. I used to get excited when I was writing End Times, when I was pounding through a particularly action-packed entry and the words were flowing like water. Now… nothing. The most recent entry is quite eventful. But I felt nothing writing it.

Am I over the whole idea of swashbuckling boy’s adventure stories? Do I want to write something more mature?

I don’t think I can. If I’m really lucky, I might have it in me to be another Stephen King. But I will never be another David Mitchell or Michael Chabon.

I’m starting to ramble and it’s getting late, so I’ll finish with the same topic I started: I have been writing End Times for five years now. While I may compare it to a stinking albatross hanging around my neck, I do not regret it. It has been an interesting experiment, an absolutely epic work of fiction, and regardless of its dubious quality as a piece of literature I will feel quite accomplished when I finally finish it. And I do still intend to finish it, even if nobody wants to read it and I don’t want to write it, because I am an exceptionally stubborn person. I am a person who read the entirety of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series, who watched an entire season of 24 in a single sitting, who spent months longer than he had to working at a hellish kindergarden in South Korea. Partly because I feel that I owe it to the few remaining readers, and partly because I have come too fucking far to give up on it now, I WILL FINISH THAT DAMNED NOVEL OR DIE TRYING.

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17 comments

I have read End Times since you first started posting. I got bored at work one day and was looking for something to read online. I had always liked post-apocalyptic movies, but being interested in the novel form never really occurred to me. Anyway, i found a link to your livejournal from someone else’s fairly crappy serial which eventually was left in limbo. I found many others, but you are the only one who is still writing. I even started my own story at the Hotel 23/Day by Day Armageddon site, but like you am having trouble finishing. Its almost 3 years old now, but I havent posted since March.

Anyway, I really do look forward to your posts. I even made notes so I can keep up with character developments. That sounded dorkier in writing than in my head…

Hey scarecrow I am a 17 year old Aussie from the Sunny coast and i’ve been reading your little story ever since I was bored one day in english and decided to see if there was any zombie stories on the interwebs. That was nearly two years ago and I am very grateful that you are still updating this great story despite the huge gaps. No matter how long it takes you to finish End times i will be here with you to the end.

I think it is absolutely normal to go through stages of unproductivity. I say that is you don’t enjoy it, then take a break. Definitely see the world. And write about it. I understand where you are coming from about wanting to be a fiction writer, but looking back, I think my own nonfiction narratives and essays are much more meaningful.

I’m glad I got on the End Times bandwagon early, but lately I’ve found your own posts more interesting, and not just because of intersecting life paths. Your book reviews have given me several good suggestions of material to read.

I do plan to see the finish of your swashbuckling zombie epic though. Maybe you should consider scaling back on the length of the entries to how some of the beginning bit were.

End Times is definitely one of my favorite zombie stories, second only to World War Z. I believe I’ve referred to it as the zombie version of Lord of the Rings before, something I still stand by. I’ve always delighted in reading every single entry. (Except that one April Fools entry you posted, in which the King bros. unleashed their Wonder Twin powers and killed all the zombies. I’m still bitter over being fooled). You shouldn’t fret about your lax update schedule — at least you’ll finish before the Mayan Y2K!

I’ve always wondered (and I might have asked before, but I don’t remember if you answered) but did you have similar plans in store for your original serial novel? (I still remember it — it had aliens slicing up the ISS, killing a bunch of people with a non-zombie virus, dropping asteroids into the oceans, etc).

Actually, you should repost the entries from that story somewhere — it was quite good as well.

I remember the aliens story as well, and Outcast, and old Day by Day Armageddon posts, and…. This story however is still my very favorite online read of any kind.

One question since you mention having plotted out much of the remaining story in advance – when major plot developments (like the most recent entry) occur during the middle of a story month, are those plotted in advance as well? In other words was the character killed off in this entry always destined to not make it through the end of October?

Then I guess this marks five years of me reading End Times. Wow. Though, like your updates I’ve been reading at an infrequent and inconsistent pace. I remember being in Europe, standing in line to check in at the airport in Copenhagen, reading End Times which I’d printed out because I needed to catch up before Monday’s update! And that massive queue gave me enough time to read through three or four (long) updates. Good times.

I don’t remember how I came upon End Times, but I know it had something to do with recognising the Matthew Reiley reference in your LJ username. I wasn’t into zombies or apocalyptic fiction, but it was a blast to read.

Motivation is a hard one sometimes for writers, and I can empathise with that. But you’re right that this is the best time to get out there and experience the world. Was it Thoreau who said, “how can you sit down to write when you haven’t stood up to live?”

For End Times, maybe you need to work out what the story means to you? What’s the point of the story of Aaron and Matt King? Tragedy or comedy? Parable or allegory? What’s the one liner that would sum it up? When you discover that, then maybe you will find the ending, and the motivation to get there.

I’ve had the pleasure of watching the quality of your writing improve over time – from the early days of End Times to this blog. Your skill defintely belies your age.

My advice, for what it’s worth, is to have a plan and a schedule to work by. Don’t leave writing as something you do as an afterthought. Make it a part of your week, or day. Whether it’s for the blog, or End Times, or a short story you just had an idea for, have a consistent time that you know is writing time. Tune out distractions, get in the zone and do it.

That’s what we do for work and exercise and even TV, so why not writing. It only feels hard now because the goal seems insurmountable. But keep chipping away, and eventually you won’t notice the friction, and then you’re being pulled along by momentum, then before you know it you’re there.

I really don’t know when I started reading End Times, but it’s been a damn sight of a long time. What I do remember is checking for updates while sheding chestrig, armour and weapons after another long ass patrol around Kandahar. I remember finding one and then zooming down to the bottom of the page to see how long that update was; then taking much joy in reading it.

Kinda felt like a kid in a candy store when I found more than one update after another -extremely- long ass patrol, lol.

Keep writing dude, and when you get finished I’ll send you a beer from Canada in celebration. I kinda owe you that I suppose.

Just wanted to put up my $0.02, not going to repeat everything that has been written above, but letting you know you still have people that get excited when they see a new post :) I love reading your work and also can’t believe that it’s been 5 years!

Hey, I used to write my own zombie journal. You may remember it: Surreal_Tom, the one that takes place in Vegas.

I’m with you 100% on what you’ve said here. I got unbearably bored of my own journal and dropped it rather abruptly back in 2005. I actually deleted the whole thing a couple years ago.

And like you, I’ve also hit a bit of a rut in writing anything at all; for the past year or so I’ve had an awful case of writer’s block. I know my style has definitely matured. I have a vision of what I want to say, just not how to say it. I was in high school too when I started my deadlog and these days I’m just fucking bored of zombies and vampires and all that bullshit. I want to write something with actual meaning, something that explores novel ideas, interesting themes, something that engages the reader and makes me a better person for having written. But when I try to write something — anything — ambitious OR dumb, the words refuse to come.

I found this post by accident. I was reading through some of my own old journal posts and decided to check if you were still plugging away at yours. You put the link to this post in the comments of your last entry.

I’m really surprised you’re still working on End Times. It’s probably the only zombie journal from those days still updating. You write well, and I’m sorry to see you don’t enjoy what you’re writing now.

This may sound sudden but I think maybe we should collaborate on something, if you’re interested — I don’t know what, or how, but I have a feeling we could help each other get out of the funk we’ve been in. If you’re interested, email me back. sultanofsurreal@gmail.com